


love in c-minor

by eurydicees



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Friends, Classical Music, During Canon, Friends to Lovers, Gay Ootori Kyouya, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, References to Shakespeare, gratuitous music metaphors, kyoya centric, tamaki plays piano a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:00:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28578633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydicees/pseuds/eurydicees
Summary: Kyoya looks at Tamaki and hears music: an orchestration written for best friends, or a symphony written for lovers. He looks at Tamaki, and he sees art. It's the kind of love he cannot unwrite.
Relationships: Ootori Kyouya/Suoh Tamaki
Comments: 6
Kudos: 85





	love in c-minor

**Author's Note:**

> written while listening to chopin's nocturne no. 21 in c-minor on repeat to get The Vibe. also shoutout to the ohshc fanwork contest (run by [ohshcscenerios](https://ohshcscenerios.tumblr.com/) on tumblr) for actually giving me motivation to write something. enjoy :)

Tamaki is going to fall in love with Haruhi. Tamaki himself might not know it, but Kyoya can see it as plain as day. Right now, they might not be in love, but things change as time wanders forwards. Love doesn’t come at first sight— Kyoya knows this firsthand. 

For now, though, Kyoya watches from afar as Tamaki and Haruhi dance around each other, a pas de deux of potential. Tamaki thinks he loves her as a father does— he’s always been oblivious to his own feelings. Haruhi doesn’t know either. 

But Kyoya is good at reading situations, at predicting their outcome, at guessing how things will turn out. He knows the inner mechanisms of Tamaki’s mind better than Tamaki knows himself. Kyoya can see where this is going. It’s an old, predictable song. 

The Host Club hangs on a kind of precipice; when Tamaki falls in love with Haruhi, it’s all going to end. Kyoya hangs on the cliff, waiting to fall down when they start dating. He’s gripping tightly to whatever handhold he can grab at, but he knows that the cliff is going to crumble eventually. 

It’ll be a grand finale, a crescendo for the ages— the Host Club, ending because two of them fell in love with each other. Kyoya couldn’t have sold a better story if he tried. When the last symphony ends, when Tamaki and Haruhi kiss for the first time, Kyoya will be able to do nothing but watch. 

—

Kyoya is fourteen years old when he realizes. It’s the first time that he hears Tamaki play piano. 

He doesn’t think about it until Tamaki has left, and Kyoya is falling asleep. He’s thinking over the day, running the song over in his head, the way that Tamaki’s hands had run over the keys, fingers bent and shadowed, the way that Tamaki had smiled when Kyoya pushed him over. 

He doesn’t know what it is about Tamaki, and he knows that he’s too young to fall in love, but he knows that, right now, his soul is beating to a song that only Tamaki knows how to play. He knows that Tamaki is the first one to make him laugh in years; Tamaki is the first one to see his kindness falter into anger; Tamaki is the only one to tell him that he can be more than what he’s limiting himself to being. 

The day after Kyoya realizes that he loves Tamaki, he realizes that it’s also a hopeless kind of love. Kyoya knows that, statistically, Tamaki is probably straight, and that, considering the fact that Tamaki has never shown any interest in him, Kyoya’s first love is hopeless. 

Tamaki doesn’t love him, and Kyoya will have to be okay with that. Fate is cruel, Kyoya is crueler, and they’ll both take their hate out on Kyoya himself. They’ll both let him self-destruct until the day he snaps. There is no song for Kyoya to sing, there is no piano waiting for Kyoya to play. Tamaki is the musician, not him. Kyoya will just be quiet, watching. 

Tamaki can’t ever know. Him knowing would just break both of their hearts. Tamaki would get that sweet, sad smile on his face and pretend that it doesn’t matter. But it does, it does matter, it matters so much. He would start to drift away, slow, uncomfortable, not wanting to be as close anymore. 

All of those small touches and bright smiles that Kyoya so desperately hungers for would disappear. So Kyoya, out of some misplaced cowardice, will keep and treasure Tamaki’s friendship rather than asking for more. If he admits anything, he knows that he’ll lose what he already has, and he’s not willing to risk that. 

—

When Kyoya sleeps at night, he dreams of a piano. Tamaki sits there, fingers at the keys, playing out something soft in a language that only the two of them know. When he wakes up, his cheeks are wet, and he is alone. 

—

Kyoya is sitting on one of the couches in the living room of the second Suoh estate, Tamaki lying down with his head in Kyoya’s lap. It’s a position that they’ve been in a hundred times before, Tamaki complaining of being bored while Kyoya studies. 

While he focuses on the book he has in hand, he absentmindedly runs his hands through Tamaki’s hair, tangling his fingers in the strands of blond. Tamaki’s eyes are closed as if he’s sleeping, and Kyoya is so engrossed in the book that he doesn’t realize what he’s doing until Tamaki sighs. 

He looks down at Tamaki, still half in his book, then feels his hand move of its own accord, pulling apart a knot in Tamai’s hair. He freezes, heart snapping and unsure if he’s crossed a line, then pulls his hand away. He’s come with so far with his feelings hidden, he can't mess up now— 

But then Tamaki just opens his eyes and frowns. “Don’t stop. I was enjoying that.” 

“Oh.” Kyoya stares at him for a moment, not sure what he’s supposed to do with that information. But Tamaki raises his eyebrows, clearly waiting, and Kyoya swallows down any embarrassment or hesitation, putting his hand back to Tamaki’s hair. “Okay.” 

Tamaki closes his eyes again, sighing softly. “What’re you reading?” 

“Nothing interesting,” Kyoya says, still staring at the pages of his book. The words are floating around, suddenly not quite making sense. All he knows, all he understands, is his hand in Tamaki’s hair and Tamaki’s slow, even breaths. “It’s for my German class.” 

Tamaki hums some acknowledgement. “You’re right then. Nothing interesting.” 

Kyoya smiles inwardly. “It’s for class though, so I don’t have a choice.” 

“Ah.” Tamaki opens his eyes, looking up at Kyoya with an honesty in his gaze that Kyoya doesn’t know how to hold. He looks away, and Tamaki closes his eyes again. 

—

Sometimes, Kyoya thinks, being in love with someone is synonymous with being alone. He watches Tamaki while he flirts with a pair of girls during Host Club hours. Tamaki is laughing, his smile burning. He caresses a blonde girl’s cheek and she sinks into the touch, eyes fluttering shut.

He tries not to long for Tamki, hopelessly unimagining the daydreams of himself in that position. He tries not to think of Tamaki’s hand at his cheek, leaning closer. He tries not to think about the way that his lips might taste, if they were to share something the rest of the world would never have. He tries not to think about what his own heart might look like, if Tamaki were to wear it on his sleeve. 

He fails. 

He’s weak, when it comes to Tamaki. He’s weak and he’s selfish and he’s lonely. He wants to be the one that Tamaki looks at. While he knows that the Host Club is nothing more than a performance, he thinks that, if he were one of the Ouran girls, he, too, would request Tamaki’s love. It makes him ache with a sickness that has no remedy.

It was always going to end this way: Kyoya, watching; Tamaki, smiling. 

There was never another option, Kyoya thinks. Fate always meant for him to be quiet, to be alone. The Host Club might be his symphony, but the conductor doesn’t get to be a part of the sound. Tamaki is a soloist, and Kyoya is watching, waving his arms and trying desperately to get his attention, sinking into the pit when he smiles. 

Maybe this is what he deserves— all of that anger and bitterness and ambition that bubbles just under the surface of his skin, all of that cunning and scheming that rests in his veins, this is what it gets him. Loneliness. 

It is an infinity within him, an infinity which cannot be contained, which cannot be sheltered, which cannot be lessened. It is a love that does not go away, and it is a self-loathing that does not relent. Loneliness builds up inside of him when Tamaki smiles, speaks, laughs.

When Kyoya looks back at him, he knows that his loneliness is also a selfish thing. He wallows in it, allows himself to drown in it. He’s hurting, and he refuses to ask for help. He refuses to make Tamaki as lonely as he feels. 

Instead, he lets himself watch Tamaki from the sidelines, and he pretends that he is not on fire. He lets himself dream about Tamaki’s music. He lets himself want. He wonders, too, what parts of himself he would have to lose, in order to be loved. 

It doesn’t matter, though, not really. This is the world they live in, and Kyoya will have to figure out how to survive it on his own.

—

Kyoya isn’t sure if he believes in reincarnation, but he once heard that true loves are people who have loved each other again and again and again, through every lifetime and every world. Fate chose their smiles to fit together at the very beginning of the universe, and those two souls have been destined to find each other in every life ever since. 

He wonders where that leaves him— has he been aching this hard for centuries? Has he been longing for lifetimes? Sometimes it feels like that, like he’s been waiting a hundred lifetimes for Tamaki to love him, and he’s going to have to get through another one before it happens. 

He doesn’t know if it’s true love of any sort, but he knows that he loves in some kind of lifelong way. Even if he moves on once they graduate and drift apart, Tamaki will still be his first love. The dramatic part of him wonders if he’ll ever move on, or if he’ll ever be able to love in a requited sense. Maybe he was built not to love, but to want. They are, Kyoya knows, not the same thing. 

—

If Kyoya’s heart were to unravel into a sound wave, into a music note, or into a word, he would be hearing it as Tamaki plays piano. It’s been a while since he’s heard him play, but sitting in Music Room 3, watching Tamaki sitting there, Kyoya remembers that his body was built to listen. It wasn’t meant to speak, or to love, but to hear. It was made to sit in the shadows, hearing Tamaki’s fingers at the keys and watching the gentle smile he gets without realizing it. Kyoya was never meant to speak or to confess; he was meant to sit in the wings and listen. 

Tamaki drops his hands from the piano, and pulls the cover over the keys. He looks up, finding Kyoya watching from a desk, and he smiles. Kyoya can feel his heart turning to music, dancing a dream ballet in the cage of his chest. Tamaki is a song, and Kyoya is nothing but a music note. Fortissimo to pianissimo; crescendo to allargando. 

“Are you alright?” Tamaki asks, frowning. He steps away from the piano, walking over to Kyoya. “You’re staring.” 

“I’m not staring,” Kyoya says. He turns away, the music still reverberating in his head, Tamaki’s smile still spinning. He opens his laptop and looks at the screen. “I’m fine.” 

Tamaki doesn’t seem to accept that, standing behind Kyoya’s chair. He reaches out, massaging Kyoya’s shoulders. “You’re stressed.” 

“I’m okay,” Kyoya sighs. 

He closes his eyes, reaching a hand up to his shoulder to touch Tamaki’s hand. The movement comes without a second thought. Kyoya can hear Tamaki shift slightly, and he can feel his breath mess with his hair, and then he feels Tamaki press his lips to the top of Kyoya’s head. It’s another innocent moment of Kyoya’s soul breaking and setting itself loose. 

Then Tamaki pulls away. “We’re about to open the doors. We should go get changed.” 

He squeezes Kyoya’s shoulders one more time, then he straightens his back and walks away. Kyoya listens to the sound of his feet echoing on the tiled floor, and it’s a kind of music. 

—

Sometimes Kyoya thinks that Tamaki will never understand him, and sometimes he thinks that Tamaki is the only person who will ever understand him. That’s the nature of an unrequited love, and an all-encompassing friendship: you are both entirely unknowable and entirely known. It’s an unsettling feeling. 

—

“Mom,” Tamaki says one day, and Kyoya can hear the smile in his voice. “How are you doing?” 

Kyoya looks behind him, seeing Tamaki leave the changing room and enter the main one. They’ve just closed down the Host Club for the day, but there’s still a kotatsu set up every ten feet, with the blankets still scattered around them. Kyoya sits at one, typing up the numbers from that day, trying to ignore how his feet are falling asleep. 

“Fine, Dad,” Kyoya says, turning back to his computer. He’s gotten good at humoring the nicknames without feeling his heart blush. 

“Today was a success, don’t you think?” Tamaki asks, reaching him. He sits down across from Kyoya, moving a flower vase that had been set at the center of the table to the floor. “Right?” 

Kyoya nods, and after quickly finishing his participant count, he closes the laptop. Looking across the table at Tamaki, Kyoya is reminded of the winters they had spent at the Ootori estate, sitting in this exact position. Tamaki smiles, like he remembers too, like those moments mean the same to him as they do to Kyoya. 

“The number of customers is up,” Kyoya says, tapping at the back of his closed laptop, “and the photobooks are selling well.” 

“It was a good idea.” Tamaki looks at the flower vase, his smile still there. He picks up one of the lavender roses out of the vase, spinning it in his hand. “You chose good flowers.” 

“They’re my favorite kind,” Kyoya tells him. “I like the color.” 

“You know in France, a purple rose means love at first sight,” Tamaki says, staring at the rose. 

Kyoya is silent, just watching Tamaki spin the rose stem around. He’s going to cut his finger on one of the thorns, he thinks. But he doesn’t say anything, just watches. He doesn’t want to give himself away, doesn’t want to bare his shaking soul. 

Tamaki looks up at him and grins, his head tilting to the side and shoulders rising. Kyoya, in some indulgent moment of weakness, reaches over the table, brushing a strand of hair behind Tamaki’s ear, letting himself linger at Tamaki’s cheek for just a moment too long, his eyes at Tamaki’s lips. He swallows, catching himself before he can ask to kiss— 

Kyoya pulls back in a single, sharp movement, sitting on his hand, just in case he breaks again. He swallows, knowing that his face is flushed red, biting down hard on his lip. “That’s interesting,” he says, doing everything he can to keep his voice steady. 

Tamaki nods. He’s staring at Kyoya, his face pink. There’s a moment of silence, and Kyoya knows that something has changed. 

“I should get home,” Tamaki says, “but I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Yeah,” Kyoya chokes out, nodding. 

Tamaki stands, and Kyoya watches him leave the room. Finally, after so many years, he’s truly and fully broken his own heart. Fate is laughing at him. 

—

Tamaki is avoiding him. 

It’s Saturday, and while Kyoya would usually get a dozen texts from Tamaki about whatever ridiculous notion he’s come up with by 11am, he instead wakes up to silence. He hates texting— it’s a ridiculous form of contact when you can just call someone— but when the weekend goes by, and Tamaki hasn’t texted, Kyoya doesn’t really know what to do with that absence. All he knows is the final, echoing notes of his own symphony ending. 

—

Tamaki and Kyoya always get to Music Room 3 before everyone else, heading straight to the room after class while the others linger a bit longer in their classrooms. They set up in silence, tossing bags into the changing room and pushing couches around until they’re in an arrangement that Tamaki is satisfied with. 

They work in silence that day, Tamaki humming something under his breath, and Kyoya trying not to watch him too closely. They still haven’t haven’t had a real conversation, instead only exchanging brief comments about classwork and plans for the club later on. It doesn’t hurt, Kyoya tells himself, repeating it as a mantra, as a chant— it doesn’t hurt at all. There is no aching, there is no loneliness. There is only the quiet, and Kyoya can bear that. He can thrive in it. 

Kyoya is putting a set of plates onto the tables when Tamaki coughs loudly and deliberately behind him. Kyoya turns. 

“I wanted to talk to you,” Tamaki says.

Kyoya raises his eyebrows, looking Tamaki over. His face is turning red, and his hands are shaking just slightly. Tamaki has always been someone who feels things deeply, who takes every sense to the extreme, no matter what the emotion is. He’s always been someone who takes every feeling and lets it fill him up until he’s bursting with it. Whatever he’s thinking about now is spilling out like an ocean unable to be contained in a mouth. 

“What?” Kyoya asks carefully. He cannot drown in this. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Tamaki says slowly. “I just… wanted to talk to you.” 

Kyoya nods. There’s a rushing of brass in his ears. “Right. Which is why you’ve been ignoring me.” 

Tamaki at least has the decency to look ashamed. He sits down on the nearest couch, sinking into the cushions and taking a deep breath. His fists are gripping the fabric of his pants tightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Don’t lie to me,” Kyoya says. “You’ve been ignoring me, and you know it.” 

“Yeah,” Tamaki murmurs. He takes a deep breath. “I just had to…” 

Kyoya glares at him, eyes sharp. “Had to what?” 

“Think,” Tamaki says. 

His voice is quiet, like he’s not sure what he’s saying, like he’s not sure what he’s going to say. In lieu of all his usual pomp and circumstance kind of smile, Tamaki is subdued. He’s nervous. 

“Are you… alright?” Kyoya asks, slow and even. 

He stares at Tamaki, at his rapidly heating face. He looks like he does when he talks to Haruhi, like he’s not sure what he’s doing, but he knows that he’s doing it. He takes a shaky breath. 

“I’m alright,” Tamaki says, “I’m more than alright. At least, I could be.” 

“Why—” 

“I’m in love with you,” Tamaki blurts out, voice suddenly loud, uncontrolled, bright, suddenly— 

Then the door to Music Room 3 bursts open and the other hosts flood in with a rhythmic chatter. Tamaki and Kyoya stare at each other, frozen while the others wander into the room, tributaries breaking into the ocean. Tamaki stands up, bolting towards the door that Hikaru and Kaoru have just entered through. Kyoya can’t remember what he’s doing, or what they’re doing, or what’s happening at all— 

“Tamaki!” Kyoya yells. No one answers him. 

Then the girls start to come in, leaving Kyoya staring at the music room door among a rapidly growing group of customers, Tamaki gone. 

—

They met for the first time in the principal’s office of their middle school, and they shook hands. There were no flying sparks, no immediate bonds. Nothing more than two boys who shook hands and then walked each other to class. 

Kyoya didn’t want to be friends. He didn’t want anything more than to make connections for his father; if he could get close to Tamaki Suoh, then he could get close to his family, and that was all he cared about. 

When Tamaki told him that it wasn’t a guarantee for him to be the Suoh heir and that he didn’t really mind all that much, Kyoya didn’t really know what to do with that. He wondered if any of what he did for Tamaki had been worth it. 

Then Tamaki told him that it was worth fighting for a place in his hierarchy of sons, even if it seemed like a guarantee that he would never get anything. Then Tamaki smiled. He set Kyoya free. Then Kyoya thought that maybe, just maybe, he could find his own place in the world, set apart from his brothers in a way that he chose rather than the way that he boxed himself into. 

If you’re meant to fall in love with people who stay at your side, who lift you up, who carry music into silent rooms and color into monochrome hearts, then Kyoya doesn’t have to wonder at all why he’s fallen in love with Tamaki. 

Tamaki might not have known what he did, but when Kyoya flipped that table and pushed him over and Tamaki had the nerve to smile, he gave Kyoya a welcome that Kyoya had never been given before. He gave Kyoya the opportunity to dream. 

What Kyoya doesn’t understand now, having just watched Tamaki run from a love confession, is what he had ever given Tamaki in return. 

—

Tamaki is avoiding Kyoya again, and Kyoya can’t stop him. He calls five times. Then he texts. 

That’s when Tamaki finally answers, in his own stupid Tamaki fashion that Kyoya loves so infuriatingly much. 

It’s three in the morning, and Kyoya is still awake, working on homework for his math class. He’s trying to focus on the calculus in front of him, on the formulas and the graphs, but it’s getting blurry at some point between the page and his eyes. He’s not sure if it’s the swirling piano behind his eyelids or if it’s the impossibilities of limits, but Kyoya can’t bring himself to focus. 

Then he hears the tapping at his window, irregular and inconsistent, and Kyoya shoots straight up. 

“But soft!” someone yells— and Kyoya knows that voice, knows it like he knows his favorite song. “What light through the upstairs window breaks?” 

Kyoya inhales sharply. There’s another tap at his window, and Kyoya freezes. That’s Tamaki, standing in the yard, throwing rocks at his window. He doesn’t move for a minute, doesn’t know what to think, but then he feels his heartbeat turn wild, his breath coming short. He stands up, the pencil clattering to the floor. The window suddenly feels a thousand worlds away and he’s out of breath when he gets there. 

Tamaki is standing below his window looking up at him. “It is the east, and—” he frowns— “Kyoya is the sun? Arise the sun and kill the sky?” 

“I’m going to kill him,” Kyoya mutters. He pushes the window open and leans out. “Those aren’t even the words!” 

Tamaki waves at him, and he’s wearing a nervous kind of smile. “But it got your attention!” 

Kyoya hangs his head, closing his eyes. “You’ll wake up the rest of the house, I’m coming down.” 

That only makes Tamaki smile wider, and he quiets. Kyoya sighs, then makes his way downstairs, avoiding the step that squeaks and keeping the lights off. He moves easily in the shadows, because what else has he ever done? 

But what Tamaki said in the music room, what he said when he couldn’t look Kyoya in the eye— maybe he isn’t in the shadows anymore. He’s heading out into the night, and Tamaki is waiting for him. A nocturne wanders through his heart, and Kyoya tries not to run. 

Strength, Kyoya used to think, is about being silent. It’s about letting go, it’s about losing the people that you love and not complaining about it. It’s about fighting for what you want, but it’s also about stepping to the side and conceding when it’s not what you earned. It’s about being what the world needs. It’s about being tactful, whether that’s a run or a retreat. 

But he gets to the side of the house, below the light of his bedroom window, and Tamaki is standing there, and Kyoya redefines the feeling of strength. This is his soul’s concerto. Telling the truth— that’s strength. That’s bravery. 

“Tamaki,” Kyoya says, breathless. “What are you doing?” 

Tamaki licks his lips, the curve of his jaw in shadow, his eyes bright. “I’m telling you I love you. For real this time.” 

“Why?” 

Tamaki blinks. “What do you mean, why?” 

“I don’t—” Kyoya stops. He stares at Tamaki, standing very, very still. “I don’t understand.” 

“I love you,” Tamaki breaths. “I need you to know that. It’s— it’s you, and I’ve always kind of known that, but then the other day— and I had to tell you because— I mean, I was going to make a big statement, with roses and carnations and, like, an orchestra, but you would have hated that, right? Or should I have—” 

Kyoya waves a hand, brushing him off, stepping forward, getting to Tamaki as fast as he can; his heart is turning and spinning and dancing, and it’s so far from broken. He puts his hands to Tamaki’s cheeks and pulls him closer. 

He kisses Tamaki and time stops— 

Then Tamaki kisses him back and their hearts beat somewhere in the silence between songs, filling up the quiet with a brightness that swallows all dark; an infinity uncontained by fear; and two hearts that cannot be held back by such a thing as silence.


End file.
